A few people were arrested on the second night of the downtown Los Angeles curfew on Wednesday. Mayors were calling on the Trump administration to pull the troops out and stop the immigration raids.
The 700 Marines that the president sent to the city were nowhere to be found. Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, who is in charge of Trump’s troop assignment, said that the Marines were learning how to be civil disobedient at a Navy base in Orange County. Sherman said that the Marines will finish training and could be on the streets of Los Angeles as early as Thursday night. About 2,000 Guard troops have already been trained, and many of them have already gone out to protect protesters. Another 2,000 are set to join them later.
He also said that about 500 of the Guard troops who were sent to the protests have been trained to go with immigration agents on operations.
At first, Sherman said that National Guard troops had temporarily detained some citizens. Afterward, he admitted that he was wrong and that what he said was based on pictures and videos that did not really show Guard troops in Los Angeles.
Based on what the cops say, almost 400 LA protesters have been detained or arrested since Saturday.
In the past few days, there have been protests in big cities across the U.S. over the crackdown on immigration. Democrats across the country, including Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, called for an end to the raids on Wednesday. Bass called them an act of harassment by the White House.
Some people say Trump is making up the crisis for political reasons and causing chaos, but the president said on social media that Los Angeles would have been “completely obliterated” if he hadn’t sent Guard men there over the weekend.
Here are some facts about the protests, the sending of troops, and the fights between federal, state, and local chief executives:
The LA cops move quickly to stop the protesters.
What You Need to Know About Trump’s Sending of National Guard Troops to the LA Immigration Protests
Ben Thomas of the Associated Press says that the Trump administration is bringing Marines to Los Angeles in response to the protests over immigration raids.
Right before the second night of the curfew, police moved quickly to get protesters away from a government building.
When cops on horses charged at a group, they hit them with wooden rods and threw them out of a park in front of City Hall. Police also used firearms to control the crowd.
A 1-square-mile (2.5-square-kilometer) area of the huge city of about 4 million people is under a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Wednesday morning, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said that two people would be charged with throwing Molotov cocktails at cops. Two cops were hurt during the protests on Tuesday night, but no officers were hit.
Raids lead to protests in other places
Even though the crackdown and protests have been most visible in Los Angeles, people have been gathering against it in other major cities as well, such as Dallas and Austin, Texas, Chicago, Denver, and New York, where thousands of people did so and many people were arrested.
86 people were arrested by New York City police during protests in and around Foley Square in lower Manhattan on Tuesday and Wednesday night. Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, said that most of the protesters were polite.
People who were protesting against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) came back to lower Manhattan on Wednesday night.
On Saturday, the president is planning a military parade in Washington, D.C., which will happen at the same time as “No Kings” protests across the country.
Republicans backed the crackdown.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that states “don’t have the right to just opt out of federal immigration law.”
Police from the Texas Public Safety Department said that on Wednesday, the Texas National Guard was at a protest in downtown San Antonio.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott wouldn’t say anything about how he called up troops from the Texas National Guard before planned protests in the city. He didn’t say if he or the president got them to work together.
What is the reason for the protests?
The protests began in downtown Los Angeles on Friday and moved to the nearby cities of Compton and Paramount on Saturday. They were caused by anger over Trump’s stricter enforcement of immigration laws.
About 10% of people who live in Los Angeles County aren’t legally in the country, making the area a good target for the raids.
As of the end of last month, Stephen Miller, who is the deputy chief of staff in the White House and the main person who came up with Trump’s immigration policies, said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should arrest at least 3,000 people every day. From January 20 to May 19, the office made an average of 656 arrests a day. That would be a huge jump.
Supporters of immigrants say that the workers who are being detained, including some in the garment area, have not been convicted of a crime and are not being given due process. Advocates for car wash workers said that only two of the 26 people who had been held since the weekend had been found. These two people were a customer and 25 workers. One of the workers who couldn’t be found was Jaslyn Hernandez’s dad, who was meant to be there Wednesday to watch her graduate.
She said, “It’s not fair that we haven’t been able to find him.”
Trump and Newsom have a fight.
Democrats like California Gov. Gavin Newsom have asked a court to stop the military from helping federal immigration police right away. The judge set a hearing for Thursday, which gives the government a few days to keep doing what they were doing.
In its official statement on Wednesday, the Trump administration called the lawsuit a “trash political stunt that puts American lives at risk.”
The change brings troops closer to doing things like deportations that Trump has promised as part of his crackdown. Police would make arrests, not the Guard, if someone attacks an officer. The Guard can hold the person briefly.
It was said by ICE in a statement that the troops were protecting federal cops and keeping federal buildings safe.
Newsom spoke out in public on Tuesday and said that Trump’s actions were the beginning of a “assault” on democracy.
“California may be the first, but it’s clear that this is not the end.” Next are other states. “The next step is democracy,” he said.
Meanwhile, people who support press freedom say that reporters who are covering the events may be under attack. Reporters Without Borders said on Wednesday that since the protests started, there have been at least 35 attacks on reporters, 30 of which were by police.
This story is now right. At first, the leader of the troops sent to Los Angeles told the AP that some civilians had already been detained by National Guard members. Later, he said that the information he had was wrong and that Guard members had not arrested civilians.
Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas; David Collins in New York; Jason Dearen, Jaimie Ding, Jake Offenhartz, and Dorany Pineda in Los Angeles; Eliott Spagat in San Diego; Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia; and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, D.C.; all worked for the Associated Press.
